


baptise me with ocean, recognise my devotion

by oceanofchaos



Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers (Comic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bisexuality, Canon-Typical Violence, Coming Out, DADT Repeal, First Kiss, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Biphobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Non-Chronological, Pining, Requited Unrequited Love, Swearing, implied Franklin Clay/Aisha al-Fadhil, implied past Jake Jensen/William Roque, implied suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 15:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14855372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceanofchaos/pseuds/oceanofchaos
Summary: Jensen's known he's bi for most of his life, but it's never really been the most important factor in whatever he's doing. It's never been worth jeopardising the life he's been building for himself, so it's not something he's planning on telling the rest of the team. And then DADT gets repealed, and it's something Jensen starts thinking about again.----Nearly a year and a half after the port of L.A., Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell gets repealed.In the grand scheme of things, it shouldn’t even make that much of a difference. It’s hardly the biggest change that’s happened recently. They’ve been killed and betrayed and bounced back, more determined than ever. So like, some draconian law finally getting repealed which, technically speaking, doesn’t even apply to him anymore, because the military thinks he’s dead, shouldn’t make any kind of difference. And yet.





	baptise me with ocean, recognise my devotion

**Author's Note:**

> This is a mash-up of film and comic canon, but it essentially runs true to film canon (Bolivia, Roque not making it off the plane, etc) and then just references a lot of comic canon. With a fairly major divergence near the end.
> 
> title from 'Don't Judge Me' by Janelle Monáe

Nearly a year and a half after the port of L.A., Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell gets repealed.  


 

In the grand scheme of things, it shouldn’t even make that much of a difference. It’s hardly the biggest change that’s happened recently. They’ve been killed and betrayed and bounced back, more determined than ever. They’re still legally dead, still chasing after Max, for all that they’ve been staying stateside as much as possible for little Len Porteous’ sake. Jolene and Len moved from Springfield to Laconia, New Hampshire, and live just two streets away from Andi and Em. Em’s even the front-runner to be captain of the Petunias this year. It’s not perfect, not yet, but it’s a helluva lot better than it looked like it was ever gonna be. Jensen’s survived Aisha, and Roque, and even a fucking erupting volcano, and he’s still golden! So like, some draconian law finally getting repealed which, technically speaking, doesn’t even apply to him anymore, because the military thinks he’s dead, shouldn’t make any kind of difference. 

 

As it is, Jensen is twenty-four, standing awkwardly in his sister’s doorway, because as soon as he’d started to unlock the door, Andi had run and jumped at him in a hug.

 

“Didn’t you hear? It’s been repealed! DADT got repealed!” she says into his ear, fierce with joy, breathless with happiness.

 

And Jensen thinks, _huh_. And Jensen thinks, _how far away are the team?_ Returning the hug on autopilot, because he’s never been one to deny his big sister a hug and he won’t start now, Jensen’s brain starts to tick over. Pooch will have kept driving over to Jolene’s place, and odds are that Clay will have joined him, because Pooch has at least one new scar since the last time they were here, and there’s no way that Jolene will let that go without a fight. Cougar will have jumped out here, because he normally crashes on Andi’s sofa when they spend their leave in town. Aisha’s more of a wildcard, but Jensen would guess she got out here too, because she’s hilariously terrified that someone will ask her to hold Len, and so just prefers to avoid the baby when she can get away with it. He ran to the door, and Andi opened almost immediately, so probably they’re beginning to stroll up the drive. 

 

“Andrea,” he says quietly, seriously, “Not now, okay?”

 

She pulls away just enough to squint at him in confusion, and it’s about to slide into a frown, he can just tell, so he picks her up by the waist and spins her around.

 

“Guess who actually missed me this time,” he crows loudly, putting her down and turning to face the garden with a wide grin, where Cougar, Aisha, and Clay are all wandering up the drive. 

 

“I honestly don’t know why, he’s an idiot,” says Andi, slinging an arm around his waist as she does. “Hey Losers, what’re you all doing here?”

 

“We’ve got a spare week or two while I go through the data we got on our last mission, so Pooch and I lobbied to spend it here,” interjects Jensen, before the others can respond, “Though if you mean why they’re here at your place, then I can’t help you, I think they just followed me home.”

 

“We thought we’d give Pooch and Jolene the opportunity for a, uh, private reunion,” says Clay, as tactfully as he can manage.

 

Aisha scoffs from beside him, “He’s just hoping that Jolene will forget she wants to yell at him if he waits long enough,” she says with a smirk, raising a quelling eyebrow when Clay looks like he might debate the point. 

 

“Good luck with that,” says Andi, amused.

 

As they reach the doorway, Cougar gives Andi a nod, and, for what must be at least the eighth time in the last year, starts to thank her for letting him stay.

 

“God, shut up,” she says with affection, going forward to give him a quick hug, before ushering everyone inside.

 

Jensen stands there in the doorway for a beat or two longer. Nothing’s really changed, not really. It isn’t like the US Armed Forces have had a hold over him for the last two and bit years, not when Spec Op Field Tech Jacob Jensen is dead. _Still_ , he thinks, _still_. It’s a big deal, even if it doesn’t actually change anything about his own situation. Worth getting drunk in celebration of tonight, he decides, and murmurs as much to Andi when he joins them in the kitchen. 

 

“There’s already champagne in the fridge,” she replies, equally quiet, and he kisses the side of her head. 

 

“We’re drinking to celebrate making it back here tonight, if you all want to join,” he announces more loudly to the room as a whole, and grins when everyone agrees. “I’ll text Pooch.”

 

————

 

Jake considers himself more than trivially attracted to guys, but the ratio is maybe attracted to five men for every sixty women. When he’s seventeen and the military is his only real option if he wants to go to college, it doesn’t feel like a very big price to pay. He’s more attracted to women anyway, and this feels like his only opportunity to get a degree. 

 

Andi is worried about it, because she doesn’t know how to stop worrying, even now that they’re emancipated. 

 

“Look,” he says tiredly, after they’ve been arguing around it for a few hours. It’s nearly 1am, and he told her that he was enrolling at dinner, and he’s not surprised to hear that she’s got issues with it on multiple levels, but he’s not changing his plans. “This is what I want to do. I can take care of myself, you know I can, and it’s not like I’m just locked in forever. I’ll get my degree, serve my time, come home to you, no big thing.”

 

“Just, what, never let your guard down, never tell everything to anyone, never–” she cuts herself off, breathing harshly, panic in her eyes.

 

“What’s this really about, Andi?” he asks, as softly and gently as he can, “C’mon, talk to me. This isn’t about me crushing on a guy once every few years, so what is it?”

 

“I can’t be afraid for you?” she asks, but she won’t meet his eyes.

 

“Andrea.”

 

Their little two-room apartment feels big, cavernous, in this moment of silence. Headlights from the road outside flash briefly through the window, and as he watches, his big sister takes a ragged breath, another.

 

“I’m pregnant, I think. I’m pretty sure,” she says, and she looks up at him now, eyes wild with emotions.

 

“Okay,” he says, “Okay. Is it Ryan’s?”

 

She forces a bitter laugh, “Why do you think he skipped the state?”

 

“And I thought I couldn’t hate him anymore,” he says, deliberately light, and she laughs a little more genuinely. “Okay, so what do you want to do?”

 

“Nineteen is way too young, right? We’re managing right now, but we wouldn’t with a baby as well, right?”

 

“Andi. What do you _want_ to do?”

 

“I don’t… I don’t fucking know. I kind of want to keep it, and I kind of want to terminate it, and I don’t think we can afford _either_ and I don’t fucking know,” she says, all run on and panicked, just like Jake’s internal monologue right now. Except that’s not right, because they can’t both panic at once, because when he panics then Andi takes care of him, so when she panics, well. 

 

“Okay, okay cool. Well then, we’ll watch a movie and then go to bed. We don’t need to decide right now either way, do we? And I’ll enlist, and then we’ll have the money to do whatever you want to do. It’s going to be fine, yeah? We’re going to be fine.”

 

Andrea leans her head on his shoulder, and he throws an arm over her to pull her in tighter. She relaxes, and suddenly Jake realises that she hasn’t been relaxed all evening, and it’s only clear how much she’s been freaking out with the sudden absence of tension. 

 

“We’re always fine,” she agrees quietly, and stays curled up next to him until they both asleep on the sofa. 

 

————

 

After the repeal, Jensen is distracted, understandably so. He’s got the account details of some fucker in Ireland who was helping Max, and he’s got to try to follow the money, work out who was paying him, and where from. He’s got to get them that next big lead, but instead he finds his fingers faltering over the keyboard. He just not quite able to sink into the zone. 

 

Over the first round of burgers, Andi had casually mentioned DADT to the rest of the group, carefully nonchalant, and Jensen had appreciated the opportunity to collect more data.

 

“About time,” Jolene had said, approvingly, and Pooch had hummed an agreement, more focused on baby Len than the conversation, it looked like, but still positive. 

 

“Like who you’re sleeping with affects whether you can do the job,” says Clay, and while it’s a sweet sentiment, Jensen chokes on his fucking drink while across the table Pooch snorts, and Cougar ducks his head to hide his grin. Aisha gives him a curious look, as though trying to assess whether the irony was intentional. 

 

“It’s not like it’ll make much of a difference,” says Aisha, apparently satisfied by whatever she saw in Clay’s face, “The people who wouldn’t have cared still won’t care, and the ones who have a problem with it just won’t be able to use official channels.”

 

Jensen catches Andi’s eyes from where he’s turning sausages on the barbecue, as if to say _see_.

 

“It still means something, to be openly on the right side of history on this one,” argues Andi, directing it at Aisha for all that Jensen knows she’s talking to him.

 

“Aisha’s right. Not saying that the repeal was a bad thing, but repealing an act isn’t going to change minds,” Jensen says, weighing in with a measured tone. As neutral as possible. 

 

“You’ve got to change the legislation and then let everyone else catch up,” tries Andi, but lets the conversation go in favour of discussing good nurseries with Jolene now that Pooch is here too. 

 

Cougar doesn’t say anything, and, from where Jensen stands over the barbecue, that goddamn hat hides enough of Cougar’s face that he can’t read him. 

 

————

 

When Jensen starts in the Army, he discovers pretty early on that he was right to tell his sister not to worry. Almost no one here is someone he’s interested in anyway, and the few fleeting crushes he has had weren’t worth jeopardising the life he’s making for himself. He makes it to Special Forces, and he’s more than fine with locking all that away. There isn’t time for much of a relationship anyway, and he’s perfectly happy with flirting with girls on his evenings off, occasionally going home with them. 

 

The first time he’s assigned to a team for a long-term placement, he panics the night before, suddenly afraid that he’s going to get comfortable, let something slip. Suddenly afraid that being around the same people for a prolonged time is going to make keeping a mental distance harder. 

 

The next morning, he meets his new squad, and tries to figure out how to fit into an already complete unit. He’s never been the new kid at school before, and it’s not something he cares for. It doesn’t last long, they do three missions together, and then Jensen is transferred elsewhere. After the fourth time that happens, the transfer papers stop saying it’ll be a long term placement. 

 

When he’s just turned twenty-one, he gets sent to Sarajevo to meet a unit who have already been embedded for a few weeks. It’s just supposed to be the one mission, because they need a Field Tech, but, as far as he can tell from the files he accesses and reads on the plane journey over, they’re as bad at keeping techs as he is at being kept. _This has the potential to be a real clusterfuck_ , is something he remembers thinking, and he’s kind of right, but when he does finally meet up with Corporal Franklin Clay and the rest of his team, he doesn’t figure that out. He meets the team, introduces himself, and gets pretty much straight to work, trying not to let on that he’s already read all of their files.

 

Within four hours, he’s whooping with adrenaline as they drive away from the warehouse of bad guys they were supposed to be observing, leans forward to flick the little nodding dog’s head on the dashboard. 

 

“What’s with the pooch anyway?” he asks, and Linwood-yes-I-know-it’s-just Linwood-there-isn’t-a-way-to-shorten-it-I-promise gives him a quicksilver smile. 

 

“Never crashed with that little guy on the dash,” he says.

 

“Rio,” interjects Cougar-yeah-I-also-know-just-Cougar-thanks immediately, “Paris, Chicago.”

 

“Does Maui count?” asks Roque, smirking at the outrage coming from the driver’s seat, “Is it a crash if it’s a submarine?”

 

“Never crashed so badly we couldn’t walk away from it,” corrects Linwood sulkily. 

 

“Well I have faith in you, pooch,” says Jensen with a grin, and he’s aiming it at the little nodding dog, but the rest of the humvee is suddenly full of laughter. 

 

“I’ll take it,” says Linwood, “Pooch is a better nickname than anything else these assholes have tried.”

 

For the first time in a very long time, Jensen starts to feel like maybe this will stick, like maybe this will work. 

 

————

 

He gets the bank transfer details because of course he does, because he’s that fucking good, and he’d be happier about it, except it means that they’ve got to move on to the next thing. Next stop Madrid, Spain, and who knows when he’ll be back in New Hampshire after that. It’s a bittersweet thing to deal with, but if he couldn’t compartmentalise, then he wouldn’t have hit fifteen, let alone twenty-four. 

 

They’re due to head out early tomorrow morning, and it’s still the halcyon days of late summer, so Jensen and Andi sit on the porch in the back garden and watch Cougar give Em piggyback ride after piggyback ride. Pooch and Jolene and Len are having a quiet night in together, and Aisha and Clay have gone to their hotel to get some privacy before they’re all back on the road again. 

 

Two beers in, Andi turns to Jensen, and he keeps his eyes on the pair in the garden. 

 

“You should tell them,” she says quiet but insistent, “They won’t– You can trust them.”

 

“I could trust Roque,” says Jensen offhand, and then more seriously, after the sharp inhale that comment provoked, “I know. I will, I think. Some time. In my own time though, seriously Andi, I need to think about it.”

 

“I know, idiot, I’m not going to out you,” she says, annoyed now. She turns back to watch Em clambering all over Cougar. “That is stupidly cute.”

 

“Offensively so,” agrees Jensen, taking a long pull on his beer. 

 

————

 

So the thing is, the thing is, well. The thing is that he was right until he fucking wasn’t, and maybe he’s not as often attracted to men, and maybe it’s never been serious enough to jeopardise his career, and then he joins the Losers. 

 

The thing is that they’re all good-looking, and it’s not a problem, not even when Cougar has enough charisma that Jensen almost immediately acknowledges that he finds him attractive, worse yet, is attracted to him. It’s not like he hasn’t met hot guys before, he can deal. But then Jensen stays.

 

By their third mission as a team, Jensen admits to himself and the yawning pit of dread in his stomach that he has something of a crush on Cougar. 

 

“Great shooting!” he calls out over the comms, as Cougar gets a perfect headshot in the guy who’d been about to stab Jensen. _Ugh_ , he thinks, _great shooting, Cougar! He’s a literal sniper, he’s just doing his job, you need to chill_. 

 

“ _Gracias_ ,” comes the low, amused reply, and Jensen reminds himself that Cougar is watching through a sniper’s scope, and probably just saw his immediate disgusted embarrassment at himself for the compliment he’d thrown out. 

 

The thing is, they’re a good team as a whole, but it’s more than that. They’re good friends, and Jensen can feel himself drifting closer and closer to Cougar. Cougar, who is wickedly funny when he wants to be, and terrifyingly competent when he needs to be, and devastatingly handsome fucking always. Cougar, who tells him everyone else’s tells in a low murmur when they’re supposed to be playing poker, who encourages his tangents even on long car journeys, who always has back whether they’re on a mission or in a bar. Cougar, who somehow became his best fucking friend when he wasn’t even looking. 

 

“You’re a sneaky bastard, aren’t you,” says Jensen, as he thinks about all this, leaning crosswise across a bed in a safehouse somewhere in Asia, staring up at the ceiling. 

 

There’s a beat, as Cougar pauses the cleaning of his rifle. “ _Si_. Why this time?”

 

_You’re my best friend and it’s only been seven months but I think I’m half in love with you already_ , thinks Jensen, before he laughs instead. “What, I need a reason now?”

 

“Point,” says Cougar, and Jensen can hear the smile in his voice without even looking over. 

 

“Ah, fuck it. Wanna play a round of cards? I’ll see if Pooch is still about,” he says, and he bounces up off the bed, noting Cougar’s nod of agreement, and taking the opportunity to bolt both from the room, and from the thoughts rattling around too loudly in his head.

 

————

 

“Jesus fuck, I was not ready for it to be this hot!” exclaims Jensen, as they make their way through Madrid towards the apartment block they’ll be setting up in.

 

“Cry more, white boy,” says Aisha with a bright grin as he swats at her, darting ahead to lead the way.

 

“How much do we even care about getting Max,” Jensen tries, and gets an elbow to the ribs from Cougar for his efforts. “Okay, okay, I’m just saying. We’ve been here, what two hours, and I’m already all sweaty and gross? You guys are the ones who are going to have to live with that.”

 

“Didn’t you spend nearly a year living in Bolivia?” asks Aisha, as she starts to unlock a door that looks much like any other door on the street. 

 

“Living is a strong word for it,” says Jensen, pushing through the doorway and immediately dropping his bags in the corridor. “Thank fucking god for air conditioners, that was a nightmare. Let’s never leave this corridor.”

 

“I don’t know why I’m _still_ surprised when you’re a drama queen,” comments Pooch drily, stepping over the holdalls of tech that Jensen had unloaded, and pressing the button to call the elevator. 

 

“Me neither,” admits Jensen, “That’s on you, buddy.” He goes to grab the three holdalls off the floor, but Cougar’s already picked up two of them. He gives Cougar a small smile, which gets returned, and Cougar’s shoulder bumps against his arm lightly as they wait for the elevator, and maybe if he wasn’t fluent in Cougar he wouldn’t know that it means _It sucked but look, we made it to here and now, despite everything_. But he is. “Yeah, I know, you’re right. Let’s make it to somewhere with more air con though, alright?” he replies, and relishes the soft huff of laughter that follows. 

 

————

 

They finish their mission and traipse out to a bar. There’s the rest of the evening to kill, pick up isn’t until tomorrow noon, and they’re in Miami anyway, so they might as well spend their time in a bar. 

 

It’s by the beach, and they grab a table that looks out over at the waves, but is still well lit and relatively central. Pooch is the one who slams down a deck of cards on the table, andRoque immediately starts shuffling despite Jensen’s groans of complaint.

 

“What’s the point? Cougar will just win anyway,” he says half-heartedly, and Cougar gives him a mean smile. 

 

“If you want me to _let_ you win,” he starts, and the rest of the team start oohing.

 

Jensen’s a smart enough man to know when he’s being baited, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still work. “Alright, bring it tough guy,” he challenges, and across the table Clay shakes his head sadly at him. 

 

“I’m getting another drink,” Clay announces to the table, getting up and pointedly not asking anyone else if they want anything. “Deal me out for the moment.”

 

Four rounds, one to Roque and the subsequent three to Cougar, and Jensen’s beginning to feel restless. The evening stays hot, for all that he’d been hoping it would cool off with the burgeoning darkness, and he can feel sweat slowly creeping down the back of his t-shirt. The heavy base of a nearby club beats loud enough that it’s audible from their table, and the conversations of the other patrons at this beachside bar seem to swell with noise. 

 

“Fuck, alright, I need another drink before I give any of you fuckers more of my money,” says Pooch good-naturedly, “I’ll get this round.”

 

“I’ll help you carry them,” says Cougar, also getting up. 

 

“Rum and coke for you, right Jensen?” checks Pooch, and Jensen nods uncaring. 

 

He’s watching Roque, who’s watching the bar. No, who’s watching Clay at the bar. He’s chatting to a girl, as ever far too young for him, and almost certainly bad news, because Clay has a sixth sense for only hitting on women who can and will stab him. 

 

“What about you, Roque?” asks Pooch, “Another Corona?”

 

“Nah,” growls Roque, turning to face away from the bar again, “Tequila for me.” 

 

They leave, and Jensen can’t help but test the waters, because Roque’s shuffling the cards with such a single minded focus that he might as well have a sign up saying he doesn’t want to have this conversation.

 

“Shall we take bets? Knife or blunt object? Tonight or tomorrow?” he says, carefully light, watching Roque’s face for any twitch, any tell. 

 

“Kitchen knife to throat, between 3 and 5 in the morning,” says Roque immediately, dealing out the cards and not looking up. 

 

“Shit,” says Jensen with an affectedly affable grin, “I can't risk betting against that, you know him way too well.”

 

Roque inclines his head, as if to say _what can you do?_ He starts to look at his hand, fanning them out and rearranging them, and Jensen follows suit. 

 

The table lapses into a slightly awkward silence, and Jensen thinks about pushing further, thinks about changing the topic. 

 

It’s been a while now, and surely they’ll be getting their drinks soon. Jensen looks up at the bar, and there’s Cougar: he’s got a beautiful redhead under one arm, and another stunner whispering in his other ear. Pooch stands next to him, and while he’s got their drinks lined up in front of him, he seems throughly distracted by the woman laughing in front of him. As Jensen watches, Cougar’s mouth ticks up into the slow smirk he makes every time they go to a bar, and for all that Jensen plays wingman on every other trip, there’s an ache at watching it that he can’t quite shake. As he watches, Clay’s girl takes him by the hand and they saunter outside, and even though Roque isn’t looking his shoulders ratchet up a notch of tension, like he knows somehow. And Jensen’s been so fucking careful for so fucking long, and yet he’s so fucking curious, so he says “Tequila would have been a good shout”, and then immediately feels himself freeze up in panic as Roque turns around to look at the bar after all. It suddenly doesn’t feel like a gamble that was worth it.  


“Not that we’d get it anyway,” Roque says, after a moment or two of silence, “Pooch is entirely distracted.” He turns back to look at Jensen, his gaze assessing, and seems to stare right through the masks Jensen juggles into the mess beneath. Roque’s head tilts slightly, assessing. “Wanna get out of here?”  


Later, Jensen will tell himself he thought about it, about the risks and the consequences and weighed the outcome. The reality is that he sees a redhead across the room giggle with delight and says simply, “Why not?”

 

————

 

They don’t have a huge amount of downtime in Madrid, though they do have a lot of waiting. There’s always a lot of waiting. Sometimes Jensen thinks his whole life has been waiting. 

 

Pooch laughs when he floats this idea to the group, “But Jensen, buddy, you’re the least patient person I have ever met!” 

 

“I didn’t say I enjoyed it,” he defends immediately, “But like. Seriously how much of our job has been just fucking waiting for shit to happen?”

 

“It could be worse,” says Cougar wryly from the window, and he huffs a quiet laugh at Jensen’s exasperated glance. 

 

“Yeah, okay, fine. How long until this guy is due to be coming out?”

 

“Within the next forty minutes,” says Clay. 

 

It’s somehow worse now that DADT is gone? He’s known that there hasn’t been anything to actually stop him from saying something for almost two years now, other than his own common sense, but now he can’t stop thinking about it. Can’t stop wondering. Not just about Cougar even, though he’s still, always, overwhelmed with the feelings he tries to suppress on that front. But about the whole team. About whether it would actually be a problem, if they’d be fine with it all, or if it’s something that they’re only okay with in theory and not in practice. If it would ruin the easy rapport they have going, and he would end up losing the biggest family he’s ever had. Or if they’d just mock him about flirting fuck ups with both men and women. If it wouldn’t make a difference. 

 

He’s pretty confident by now that he knows them well enough to know that none of them are actually homophobic, but do they even think of bisexuality as a thing? Is there any point bringing it up? He’s been living his life perfectly happily without ever mentioning it before, is there a reason to start now?

 

Would they wonder if he’d been crushing on them? Would Cougar? Can he tell them that he’s attracted to men, but not tell Cougar that he’s in love with him? Is that fair? Is it worth changing the status quo in the first place, just for the chance he might one day find a guy he wants to pursue something serious with? Is it worth it when romance is hardly an option they actually have time for; he’s living a life on the run, legally dead, and there’s no way of knowing if they’ll ever catch Max, if they’ll ever be able to settle somewhere for longer than a week, ever be able to live without looking over their shoulders. Odds are still pretty high that Jensen catches a bullet in the skull courtesy of Max or some other Agency spook. 

 

Cougar kicks at him gently, and when Jensen looks up from his laptop screen, he’s tipped his hat back, and is looking at Jensen with concern in his eyes.

 

“ _¿Qué onda?_ ”

 

Jensen smiles ruefully, and Cougar’s eyes narrow. It would be a lot easier to work on trying to get over this wildly unfortunate bout of feelings if Cougar would stop reminding Jensen why he likes him. If he wouldn’t always be quite so in tune with Jensen’s mood, quite so good at interpreting what Jensen doesn’t say as well as what he does. 

 

“I’m fine, dude, just. Not a fan of waiting around. Get too caught up in my own head, you know how it is.” He’s not lying, per say, but he sure isn’t saying everything. What’s new?

 

Cougar gives him an assessing look, and Jensen can see him decide to let it go. He gives Jensen a small nod and turns back to the window. 

 

————

 

When it happens, Jensen thinks Santa Maria is the worst it can get. Is the worst thing he will ever live through. 

 

It’s something of a learning experience, because he’s known for years that he’d rather suffer pain than watch someone else suffer, but some small and selfish part of him had wondered if it was different if the someone wasn’t Andi or Em. 

 

It isn’t. He wishes it was.

 

Santa Maria is the clusterfuck to end all clusterfucks, sitting there for hours, arguing with mission control until he's hoarse, having to listen to the endless fucking screaming. It’s what nightmares are made of. For weeks, it’s very literally what his nightmares are made of.

 

Pooch doesn’t speak for a week, just takes watches mechanically, curling up into the smallest ball he can to sleep away every other waking hour. Things have been pretty serious with his new girl, Jolene, until now, but he doesn’t contact her for at least a month. When Jensen goes to ask him about it after dinner one night, Pooch looses the blank mask he’s been wearing and just starts crying. Sobbing as quietly as he can. Jensen drags him into a hug, and does much of the same. 

 

Cougar hasn’t shut down in the same way, but he barely speaks any English those first few days, responding in Spanish if he’s asked something directly, which is a little tricky given Clay is the only one with more than fairly rudimentary Spanish. He’s taken to praying more, something which Jensen used to only see him do on occasion, like hearing those forsaken in Santa Maria has somehow reinforced his faith. He explains in Spanish one shift to Jensen, and while he doesn’t understand all of the words, he gets the gist of it; Cougar’s waiting on some sort of divine retribution to those Parsec motherfuckers, and while he does he needs heaven to exist because he needs the people in Santa Maria to have gone somewhere better. It doesn’t make it okay, but if it helps him live with what they witnessed, Jensen can’t begrudge it.

 

Clay reacts in a way that Jensen can perfectly understand: he gets angry. He’s furious, it’s thrumming in his every movement, barely hiding behind his every word. He yells at their superiors over the radio every day for three days, and only stops when it’s clear that if he does it again he’ll be court martialled. He storms around the camp, checking and rechecking their equipment with a single-minded intensity borne from trying not to act on his anger, and his fury is almost inspiring. 

 

Roque, well, Roque responds in the scariest manner possible. He behaves entirely normally. Not trying to put up a cheerful normal exterior, like Jensen’s been doing, but genuinely normal. The first day he seems equally heart-broken and angry, equally hurt and horrified. By the second day he seems almost more annoyed at the SNAFU, as though he is already forgetting the sounds of those screams, and though they don’t haunt his every waking moment. By the end of the week, he’s acting entirely normally, and Jensen truly can’t tell if anyone else sees this, or if they think Roque’s got an exceptionally good poker face. Maybe it’s just a facade, and Jensen’s reading into it, but his instincts on this sort of thing are normally very good. It’s alarming either way.

 

————

 

On his twenty-fifth birthday, Andi gets Jensen a t-shirt. It’s been her go to gift for years, something brightly coloured and besloganed, and maybe it’s a little tacky but it’s their tradition and Jensen loves it each time. 

 

They’re in Laconia for a flying visit, due to head out to Qatar in three days time to check out an oil rig that Jensen is fairly confident Max bought, and probably they would have stayed in New York state if it hadn’t been so close to Jensen’s birthday, and Em hadn’t manipulated Clay into helping her plan a birthday surprise. 

 

It’s been an adorable night; they had told Jensen that they were driving to pick up a last piece of equipment and let him sleep through the trip to New Hampshire, and when he’d woken they’d parked the van next to Andi’s backyard, in which they had a picnic set up with Andi, Em, Jolene, and Lem all wearing party hats. There was cake and ice cream and all sorts of dumb games, and Jensen gave Em piggyback rides until she was ready to crash. They drank their way through an awful lot of spirits, and ate far more than anyone could handle, and it’s one of the happiest nights Jensen can remember in a long time. Maybe ever. Right now Aisha is wearing a party hat at a jaunty angle, and playing Joleneand Cougar at the most brutal game of Go Fish Jensen has ever seen. Pooch is asleep, head in Jolene’s lap, and Clay is playing with baby Len.

 

Andi tugs him up, and brings him into the house, past Em’s bedroom, where she was put to bed a good two hours ago, to the room that he normally stays in. There are two different presents wrapped on the bed, and Jensen looks at her askance, because the benefit of tradition is that he never gets surprised. 

 

“Twenty-five is a big year,” is all Andi says, passing him one of the two parcels. “This one first though.”

 

“You’re being even weirder about this than usual,” he teases, but she just smiles at him, giving him nothing, so he opens the present. It’s a pale grey, and in bright pink, blue, and purple lettering it reads ‘World’s Okayest Bisexual’. He holds it in his hands, and doesn’t really know how to respond. “This is you not pushing?” he asks eventually.

 

“Why do you think there’s another present, asshole? I just couldn’t not get it for you when I saw it,” says Andi, tossing the other present to him, and he drops the t-shirt onto the bed in order to catch it. 

 

This one is a black t-shirt, with ‘Support the Troops’ and three stormtroopers emblazoned upon it. 

 

“I didn’t want to just get you the other one, and then have the team ask what t-shirt I’d gotten you. So, happy birthday. Love you, kid.”

 

Jake stares at both the t-shirts, lays them out beside each other on the bed, and just takes them in for a moment. Then he turns and crushes Andi in a hug, whispering in her ear, “You know I love you a lot, right? Because I do. You’re the best.”

 

“Of course I know I’m the best,” she responds, snarky as anything and squeezing him just as tightly.

 

Before they leave the room to return to the garden, he looks at the t-shirts again. 

 

“It is a really good fucking tee,” he says.

 

“It’ll suit you,” she agrees, “Way better than any of the ‘World’s Best Bi’ tops that are out there.”

 

He laughs brightly, and shoves at her as they leave the room, “Yeah, fuck you too.”

 

————

 

It’s amazing, how freeing it is to commit friendly fire. Before Santa Maria, Jensen would have sworn up and down that he’d never try to hurt someone he didn’t have a mission about, certainly not an ally. Let alone try to kill them.

 

After Santa Maria, after being forced to meet up with the same fuckers who did it and hearing these private security assholes brag about the multiplicity of atrocities they had committed, well. It’s opened up his eyes a little. 

 

Cougar’s the first one to slip up, accidentally hit someone on their side and not the enemies’. Jensen’s watching on a camera feed, and it’s an accidental shot that goes straight between the eyes of a man who was discussing over lunch how he likes them still burning.

 

The next day, Jensen fails to stop one of the electronic tripwires in time, and four men who had been laughing about the condition they left the school in were caught and executed.

 

Pooch arrives to the extraction points just a minute too late for one of their wounded, and arrives back at the camp just a minute too late for another. Cougar has record numbers of accidental friendly fire mistakes, explaining to Wade that there’s a problem with his scope and he’ll have to requisition a new one when he’s called out on it. Pooch hits pothole after pothole, arrives just that moment too late at four more extractions, and on one occasion manages three flat tires in one day. Jensen accidentally triggers alarms, he fails to turn off electric fences in time, he swivels cameras in the wrong direction and blows attempt after attempt to infiltrate the enemy camp. One day, they attempt to sneak in unseen, and bring Jensen and Roque with them, presumably to ensure their extraction team actually arrives on time. When the Parsec motherfuckers are halfway across the enemy camp, stealthily infiltrating and entirely exposed, Jensen looks at Roque and nods. The sound of Roque’s handgun accidentally going off wakes up the enemy camp in moments, and the yard becomes a killbox in scant minutes. 

 

When those remaining, Roque and Jensen included, albeit barely, make it back to their own camp, Jensen realises he feels alive and gleeful for the first time since Santa Maria. 

 

“ _¡Aguas!_ ” Cougar chides, when they get back, cuffing Jensen around the head, and Pooch chuckles.

 

“I dressed them down in the humvee, but feel free to give it another shot,” he says, and Jensen almost feels like they’re back on track.

 

He’ll never know how Clay gets them out of the surely inevitable court martials, but he manages it somehow.

 

————

 

There’s less time for flirting than there used to be when they’re on the run, that’s for sure, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t try. They’re at a bar in Portland, and the evening’s devolved somewhat. Pooch has gone home to skype Jolene, something he does all the time now that she knows he isn’t dead, and Jensen has had the time and the equipment to set up a truly secure line. Clay and Aisha were with them, until they very much weren’t. They were drinking beer, not spirits, so Jensen is hopeful that they’ll be fucking and not fighting. If they have to get a new motel at this time of night because the current one is burning down, he’s going to be pissed. 

 

It’s just him and Cougar left at the bar, like old times, so they make their way over to the pool table. They play a few rounds, Jensen cheerful and showy, Cougar amused and focused. It always amuses Jensen the way Cougar automatically hold the cue like it’s a sniper rifle.

 

“Do you need a scope?” he laughs, as Cougar surveys the table with concentration. “Here, I’m sure I’ve got some binoculars on me somewhere, maybe that’ll help.”

 

“Get fucked,” grins Cougar, shoving him away, and it’s kind of a perfect night.

 

“Hi,” says a light voice, “Don’t suppose we can join in?” Two women, both beautiful, both smiling, stand off to one side of the pool table. 

 

Cougar and Jensen look at each other, instantly reading each other’s faces, before turning to them. 

 

“It would be our pleasure,” says Jensen, sweeping an arm out as though to invite them in. 

 

Cougar, being fucking Cougar, kisses each of them on the hand, while Jensen rolls his eyes exaggeratedly. 

 

“I’m Sadie,” offers one of the women, a white brunette with a riot of short curly hair.

 

Her friend, a much shorter East Asian woman, grabs a cue and starts examining the pool table, looking up to offer, “Lucy,” with a smile.

 

“I’m Jake, this is Carlos, welcome to the pool table,” he jokes, and it might not be perfect, but it’s still pretty damn good. He’s certainly not complaining about his lot in life.

 

————

 

Things slowly fade back to normal, or as normal as they’ve ever managed. It’s not like the Losers ever do anything by halves, it’s all still hair-raising missions in far-flung countries that they really shouldn’t survive even half as well as they do. 

 

“Jensen can do it,” says Pooch with a smirk, “He’s pretty enough.”

 

“ _Si_ ,” agrees Cougar, matter-of-fact, and even Roque nods.

 

“Hey, fuck you, I’m– Wait. Yes? I don’t actually know what the correct answer is here,” says Jensen, as Clay hums thoughtfully. 

 

“I think you’re right, Pooch, Jensen should be able to go undercover for this one. Just pick a better backstory this time.”

 

“It’s not like any of you knew who Oliver Queen was!” Jensen complains immediately, “And I didn’t actually go for fucking Bruce Wayne, so really–“

 

“Jensen, if you even consider trying to say we should be lucky that you’re not entirely unprofessional,” Roque cuts him off, smirking when Jensen stops mid-word. “Yeah, thought so.”

 

They’re trying to organise an infiltration op in Berlin, trying to get to some drugrunner who owns an extremely exclusive club. It’s particularly popular during Fashion Week, so whoever goes in to clone the codes from the druglord’s phone is going to have to wear some ludicrous high fashion duds, and judging by how hard Pooch is pushing this, he’s definitely seen them.

 

“Plus you speak German, right?” adds Pooch, just as Jensen thinks this, and he can see in Clay’s eyes that it’s a done deal.

 

“A bit, it’s nowhere near as good as my Pashto. Or my Dutch.” Jensen looks around the room of smirking men. “Alright, let’s see it, what am I wearing?”

 

“Dunno what you’re bitching about, Jensen, it’s not like you’re not always wearing bright colours anyway,” says Roque, pulling a holdall out from under the table. Reaching a hand in, Jensen finds it full of grey tweed with neon orange lining, and something that appears to be black mesh before he shoves it all back in the bag.

 

“He has a point,” states Cougar calmly, and then laughs at Jensen’s howl of betrayal. 

 

————

 

The oil rig was a bust, sort of, or at least it isn’t the full picture yet, so they head out again. 

 

This time, they’re bound for London. It’s been nearly a year since DADT was repealed, and that seems like such an odd way to measure time. It’s been nearly three years since the showdown at the port of L.A., and it feels close now, like the trail is heating up. If they haven’t caught up with Max by the end of the year, Jensen would be truly surprised. When you’re hunting for someone, you can feel it when the end is getting near, and Max is running out of places to hide. Jensen knows, because he’s the one flagging all his resources, all his locations, everything and anything he can find.

 

When they arrive in London, everyone on the team’s least favourite European capital, it’s neither warm nor cold, but very cloudy, as ever. It’s weird that it’s harder to blend in when they’re in a country that speaks the same first language, but somehow Brits always seem to be really aware of them. Like there’s some ongoing anti-American sentiment that means they’re just always fucking glaring over at their table. 

 

This pub is full of fucking soccer fans, and they’re all in a bad mood, which means they must have just lost. Normally, Jensen wouldn’t give a shit, but they’ve all finished their drinks, and being an even 6ft means he’s going to be the one shunted off to fight his way through the crowd to get the next round. If he doesn’t get punched, it’ll be a goddamn miracle. 

 

Even when Pooch and Clay manage to clear out the pub with some well placed lies, Jensen’s still forcibly volunteered to get the next round. Typical. 

 

He’s chatting with the bartender aimlessly, looking back at the table occasionally, when he makes the decision. His team, his friends, have moved on from talking about the mission set up they have to do tomorrow, and they’re laughing among themselves. Pooch is grinning a truly wicked grin, which presumably means he’s giving Clay shit. Given the way Cougar is laughing, his eyes tracking Aisha, who has just entered the pub, Pooch is probably giving Clay shit about Aisha. Jensen nods at her as she sneaks up on the table, and she mouths, _rum and coke, thanks_. He adds the order, and starts bringing over the first pair of pints, just in time to see Pooch jump about a foot, as Aisha reveals her presence. 

 

“Do you want a hand with the others?” offers Cougar, and Jensen shakes his head with a smile, heading back to the bar. Sure, it’s not perfect, not yet. They’re in London, for a start, and they’re still chasing fucking Max, and they haven’t cleared their names yet, but it’s better than he thought it might get, and it’s not long now. 

 

He’s still got his team, and maybe Roque isn’t in it, and maybe Aisha is, but they’re still his team. He knows they have his back. He’ll die for them, if he has to. He might have to pretty soon. It seems inherently wrong to do that without saying anything. If they were going to turn on him, it would have happened before now, right? And for a better reason than liking guys, surely. He can be pretty fucking annoying when he puts his mind to it, and despite his best efforts, it hasn’t driven any of them away yet. He brings over the rum and coke, and Cougar’s Corona, and goes back to get his own drink. Aisha took his seat when she arrived, so he pulls up next to the booth.

 

“Hey, shove over,” he says to Cougar, who’s already moving to make room for him, one arm thrown casually over the booth. Jensen sits down next to him, Cougar’s arm still thrown over the back of his seat, and he doesn’t let himself overthink it. He’ll tell them tomorrow. 

 

————

 

It’s night, and Andrea should be in her own bed, but it’s late enough that they’re probably safe like this, both of them curled up on Jake’s bed, her hand stroking softly through his hair, as though trying to soothe his ever rushing thoughts. 

 

It had been a particularly bad day, and at fourteen, Jake knows this isn’t how it should be.

 

“He’s right, you know,” he says, and for all that it’s a whisper it seems loud in the quiet of the room. Louder for all the meaning echoing behind such a small sentence. 

 

“No,” says Andrea, resigned and sad, “He’s not.”

 

Jake thinks about letting it go, and then decides that this is important. That Andrea’s always on his side anyway, even when she shouldn’t be. “I told you about the new kid, right?” He can feel her hair brushing against his forehead as she nods. “Leon. He’s, I. I think I have a crush on him, so Dad was right, he’s right, I am a gay, and I am–” Now he’s started talking, he can feel the weight of his fears crashing down on him, and he struggles to get it all out at once, he struggles to breathe.

 

“Hey,” she says, still soft, still holding him in her arms, “He’s not right. Maybe you have a crush on Leon, but that doesn’t mean he’s right about you. It’s not a bad thing, okay? Liking boys isn’t a bad thing, I promise, you’re okay.”

 

Jake barely hears her through the blood rushing in his ears, “I just don’t understand, I still like Maria and I don’t even _want_ to like Leon, and I’m trying so hard to be good, and I don’t understand why he has to be right, and I don’t understand why I’m _like_ this,” and suddenly he’s crying these awful gut-wrenching tears. He keeps as quiet as he can, but he can hear how his breath keeps hitching, and he can feel the heat of them on his cheeks, so he buries his head into Andrea further to try to muffle the sound. 

 

“Sweetheart,” she says, and as ever it sounds like her heart is breaking, “Oh Jake, sweetie. You’re okay, it’s okay. You can like boys and girls and none of it makes you a bad person, I promise. I _promise_. You trust me, don’t you?” 

 

Jake nods, because of course he does, because she’s the only person in the world that he trusts, and he tries to let his breathing slow.

 

“I’m telling you now, it’s okay. You’re good, you are. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

 

“He’ll kill me if he knows,” Jake says, voice so quiet he’s not sure that she’ll hear him. 

 

“I’m not letting that happen,” she replies fiercely, and for a moment Jake can almost feel the rage that she represses on a daily basis. “I’m getting us the fuck out of here, okay. I’m getting us the fuck out.”

 

“You are?” 

 

“Yeah, I promise. We’re going to get out, and we’re going to just fucking fine.” Andrea never lies to him, not about anything, and for the first time in a long long time Jake feels a sliver of hope. If she says it, it must be true. He’s good, and they’re good, and they’re going to get out. 

 

————

 

Jensen stares at the t-shirt in the thick light of the mid-morning. He was up making airtight covers until 4am, so they let him sleep in. When he first woke up, he dragged the tee from the very bottom of his bag, where he’s been keeping it, and it probably means a lot that he brought it with him instead of leaving it in the dresser in Laconia, but he did. He turns twenty-six in two months, and they’re so nearly at the endgame for Max, he can feel it. If he’s telling them, and he wants to tell them, then this is the most _him_ way possible to do it. Still, it’s a lot. 

 

He goes for a shower, and when he gets back, the t-shirt still reads ‘World’s Okayest Bisexual’. He’d maybe debate it more, but the smell of bacon being fried wafts up the stairs, and he’s sure there’s a full pot of coffee by now, so really, who wants to delay going downstairs anyway? He puts on some jeans and finally pulls on the tee. It’s a little tighter than he’d buy for himself, as are all the tops Andi buys him, because she likes to tease him about being the most musclebound geek she’s ever met, but when he looks in the mirror it looks good. 

 

He heads downstairs, into the main part of the warehouse, where the small standalone kitchen unit is, and the table covered in maps and plans that they’ve been pouring over the past few days sits. The van Pooch has been stripping and rebuilding is still up on jacks, but Pooch himself is cooking a large fryup over the small gas hob, Cougar helping him ferry foodstuffs to the table. Clay and Aisha are sitting side by side, going over the floorplans of the building they’re infiltrating tomorrow, sipping on mugs of coffee each. As Jensen walks in, it feels like the world goes into slow-motion. Cougar, partway through putting a plate of toast on the table freezes, eyes flickering between Jensen’s tee and his face. Clay takes another draft of his coffee, and his eyes also catch on the writing, face drawing into a somewhat bemused frown. Pooch turns around to see where Cougar’s gotten to, and as Jensen watches, his head tilts to the side as he reads the t-shirt. The room is quiet, bar the quiet sizzles of the onions and sausages still in the pan. 

 

Aisha looks up, and zeroes in on his top. “Oh, hey, same,” she says matter-of-factly, and then looks back down at the floorplan. “Can you tell what this is supposed to be?”

 

Jensen grabs a mug, and comes to sit down next to her, pointedly trying to ignore the silence of his teammates, “Oh yeah, weird right? It’s listed as a stationary cupboard, but from what I can tell it’s a panic room. I’ve got your covers finalised, by the way, here we go, two bonafide arms dealers.”

 

Of course, Pooch won’t let them just ignore the whole thing, because he’s determined to be the emotionally healthy and grounded one of the group, so as breakfast is served, he starts the conversation.

 

“When did you have time to go clothes shopping? That’s a new one on me,” he says, and Jensen kind of wants to laugh at how careful he’s being, because this is so classic Pooch. Even before he and Jolene decided to have kids, let alone before Len was born, Pooch has always been the one to instigate any important emotional conversations within the team. It’s sweet, even though it’s clearly a function of him not trusting that they wouldn’t just repress all their issues without him.

 

“Andi got it for me," Jensen replies, and sees Aisha’s eyebrows go up as she realises what’s about to happen. 

 

“Oh, uh, I’m going to. Take my coffee and do a walk around the perimeter,” she says, shovelling her scrambled eggs in as quickly as she can manage. “I’ll be back in like. Twenty minutes?”

 

“Ten, max,” says Jensen, amused, and she scarpers. “So we’re doing this, huh?” he asks once she’s escaped the room, looking at Pooch, and determinedly keeping his face with the easy smile of a man who doesn’t much care what’s about to happen. 

 

“So you’re bisexual,” states Clay.

 

“Yup,” Jensen agrees, because he can make this conversation easier on everyone, but it doesn’t mean he’s going to. 

 

“You could have told us, you know,” says Pooch, frowning slightly, in that way he’s perfected which means that he’s a little disappointed in himself but he’s mostly disappointed in you.

 

“Don’t Tell was like, a pretty major part of the policy,” points out Jensen. 

 

“That was repealed almost a year ago,” argues Pooch, “And you still could have told _us_.”

 

“I know,” says Jensen. A beat. “This _is_ me telling you.”

 

There’s another long pause, and Jensen focuses on finishing his hash browns. Doesn’t want to look up and see their expressions because he doesn’t want to over analyse them.

 

“So you like men and women?” checks Cougar, quietly, measured. Jensen can’t help but look up at that. Cougar’s sitting very very still, watching Jensen, as though waiting for him to make eye contact.

 

“Yeah. More women than men, but yeah, that’s the sum of it,” he says, and he’s nervous that they’ll ask more questions, and he’s nervous that they won’t.

 

“ _Chido_ ,” says Cougar, and gives him a little nod, before turning his attention to his food. 

 

When he looks over at Clay, the guy’s giving him a bemused look. “C’mon Jensen, who am I to judge who anyone wants to sleep with? As long as it doesn’t interfere with the job, and it hasn’t seemed to yet…”

 

“Right,” says Jensen, slow, off-balance. He had only wanted to tell them because he thought they’d be fine with it, and yet they’re being so fine with it that he’s not quite sure what to do with dthem.

 

“I guess the real question,” starts Pooch, and he’s got that glint in his eyes that always spells trouble, “Is are you any better at flirting with guys or is that a trainwreck too?”

 

The three of them start laughing, even as Jensen starts to loudly, joyfully, protest such malign comments.

 

————

 

From the second they touch down in Bolivia, Jensen has a bad fucking feeling. It’s not hard to have a bad feeling about it, not when laser painting someone’s house from a few miles away is, quite frankly, weirdly below their pay grade. 

 

They have a night in La Paz while they’re waiting on the equipment for the mission, so they find a dive bar and do their best to blend in, because the only other option is just kicking about in their safehouse. Given they’ll be stuck with just the five of them in the jungle for at least a week, it seems well worth getting some more socialisation in while they can. Besides, there’s no point worrying when nothing’s even happened yet.

 

Roque’s getting drinks for once, and when he turns to gesture one of them over to help him carry them, Jensen heads over. As he gets to the bar, he is immediately distracted by the beautiful woman sitting there, not very subtly eyeing him up.

 

“ _Hola, churro_ ,” she says with a smile, and Jensen grins. He’s so much better at being flirted with than he is at flirting.

 

Jensen grabs his drink, and pulls up the stool next to her, offering his name with another bright smile.

 

“Claudia,” she says, “ _¿Vamos a pirañear?_ ”

 

“Aren’t we?” he asks in return, somewhat hopefully. His Bolivian Spanish is weak at best, while he’s got some Quechua, it’s nothing that will be helpful in the trying to pick up a beautiful woman department, and he’s got next to no Aymara. 

 

Claudia gives him a look up and down, lingering and slow. It certainly feels like a good look. “We are,” she decides, “We definitely are. So tell me, Jake, how are you finding La Paz?”

 

“It’s growing on me,” he jokes, giving her a once-over himself. She really is very good-looking, and she really does seem to be actively into him. 

 

They haven’t flirted very much more before Jensen feels a line of heat at his back, hears a familiar chuckle. 

 

“I was wondering where our drinks got to,” says Cougar, sly like he’s in on a joke, “But this makes perfect sense. _Hola, me llamo Carlos_.” He reaches a hand out, and Claudia takes it, eyelashes fluttering. He kisses her hand, because he is the best friend and worst wingman Jensen has ever met, and in moments they’re flirting in rapidfire Spanish. 

 

Jensen looks over at the table, where Pooch is clearly still waiting on his drink impatiently, while Roque and Clay shamelessly laugh at him. Grabbing his drink and Pooch’s, he gives a nod to Claudia, and gets up to head over to the table again. Cougar gives him a mischievous look as he relinquishes his seat, and Jensen leans over to whisper “ _Chinga tu madre_ ,” in his ear. Irritatingly, it just makes Cougar’s smile wider. 

 

————

 

So it turns out that it doesn’t really matter if everyone said they’re fine with it, because Jensen is a grade A genius, and he can tell when someone is fucking avoiding him. He’s barely seen Cougar these last two days, and it’s not because they’ve had conflicting work details. Even when they were supposed to be doing recon together on the Gherkin, Cougar managed to avoid him. It’s not like Jensen isn’t aware that Cougar’s coming from a much more conservative culture than he is, the Sacred Heart tattoo on his chest is a bit of a fucking giveaway, but he never really thought Cougar would be bigoted. It aches somewhere deep in his chest to think that maybe they’ll never be good again, never on the same page again. Predominantly, however, he’s just relieved that he never went so far as to admit to feelings, because while he can’t imagine how this could be worse, he knows now that it would be. It must be. 

 

It’s not that he thinks Cougar won’t have his back now, because that’s the only way they know how to survive at this point, but if his options are to confront it or to ignore it and subsequently maybe have Cougar ignore him for the rest of time, then it’s a no-brainer. 

 

“Anyone know where Cougar is?” he asks, when he’s finished sorting out transport for the next leg of their journey. 

 

“Upstairs, probably,” offers Pooch, from below the engine of a car.

 

“Real helpful, asshole,” replies Jensen, kicking him in the ankle as he walks past. 

 

“He said he was going to relax, so I’d guess bedroom,” says Clay, looking up from the itinerary Jensen gave him. “I don’t know what’s going on, but fix him before he goes silent again.”

 

“Cool, great, thanks Clay,” responds Jensen, bounding upstairs and trying not to think about what happens if he, the team’s Cougar-wrangler, falls out with Cougar for good.

 

When he gets to the room they’ve been sharing, Cougar’s there, perched on the window frame, and therefore resting his feet on Jensen’s bed. Boots still on and everything.

 

“Look, I’m trying to be cool about all this, but you’re making it really fucking hard.” It’s maybe not the best way to start the conversation, given the way Cougar tenses up, but at this point Jensen feels he’s pretty fucking justified.

 

“Cool about what?” Cougar asks, measured in a way that would fool anyone else, but Jensen  _knows_ him.

 

“Fuck that, you know what. You’re my best friend and you’ve been weird with me since I said I wasn’t straight, and it’s not okay. If you’ve got an issue with me, tell me, but don’t fucking shut down on me, not again.”

 

Cougar actually flinches while Jensen’s talking, and it’s not nearly as satisfying as Jensen would have guessed.

   


“Are we a team or not?” asks Jensen, torn between furious and miserable.   


 

“ _Claro_ ,” Cougar replies without hesitation, “We are, of course we are.”

 

“Then talk to me, asshole,” snaps Jensen, sitting down heavily on the bed closest to the door. Cougar’s bed.  


 

There’s a long silence and Jensen thinks very seriously about legally changing Cougar’s name to something embarrassing. Or giving him twenty parking tickets. 

 

“I’m readjusting,” says Cougar eventually, “I thought. I thought I knew everything about you, but I didn’t, and. You’re my best friend too, you know that.” Cougar talks with enough self-assurance that Jensen automatically nods, even though he’s been wondering about that lately. This makes sense though: Jensen’s sexuality might well never have been an issue, but his ability to hide something was. These days, they’re all burnt out on trust, and having Jensen casually reveal that he’d been keeping something from them this whole time seems to have hit a little too hard. It’s not like he doesn’t get it. 

 

“I didn’t want to lie to you,” says Jensen, “That’s kind of the whole reason I came out.”  


 

“I know,” says Cougar, and the small smile he gives Jensen feels more natural, more real than anything he’s seen for days. He hadn’t realised how much it had been upsetting him not to see that, but the relief at this point is so overwhelming that he can’t repress it immediately. “I’m sorry, Jake, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. _Lo siento_.” 

 

“So you’re fine with it. Me. With me being bi. You’re just, fine?” It seems foolish to ask, given he doesn’t want to know the answer if it isn’t yes, but if he doesn’t ask outright, he’ll just torture himself about it.   


 

“ _Claro_.”

 

“You promise?”

 

Cougar tips his hat back so that Jensen can see his whole face, his eyes wide and clear and honest. “I promise, Jake.”  


 

“Cool, good. I’m glad. It really sucked thinking we might not be okay.”

 

Cougar nods, and Jensen finally realises that he’s been afraid of that as well.

 

“Feel free to, like, not fucking do that again, thanks,” says Jensen, only somewhat joking, and he can see from the way Cougar’s face softens that he understands that.

 

He’s deeply sincere in that effortless way that only Cougar can manage when he looks Jensen in the eyes and says, “I promise.” No one else has ever been able to say something and have Jensen instantly believe them quite like Cougar, and it would be a problem, except he’ll never abuse it.  


 

————

 

“Maintain position,” comes the order, and Jensen looks up at the rest of the team in alarm. 

 

“Maintain position? What is he talking about?” asks Roque, and Jensen can’t help but agree. He’s not sure he can live through another Santa Maria, not if there’s anything they can do to help. 

 

Within a second of mission control using Clay’s name on the goddamn radio, Jensen’s scrambling to try to contact the jet directly, but it’s no good. Someone’s jamming them. A group of children in mortal danger, and Jensen without the equipment or capacity to help them is literally in his top three worst nightmares, and in his peripherals he can see Cougar vibrating with tension, Pooch wild-eyed with horror. When Clay and Roque start planning to go in, Jensen feels an immediate burst of relief, because either they save the kids or they don’t save themselves, and either way, this isn’t gonna be anything like goddamned Santa Maria. 

 

When they race away, kids in the school bus with them, fireball roaring directly behind them, no seatbelts for anyone, there’s a split second where Jensen thinks _This is it_ , and then immediately _Andi will get it, I couldn’t just leave those kids_. Then the bus is flying through the air and Pooch is insisting loudly that he’s got it, that they’ll all be fine, and then they land. 

 

There’s this brief moment of quiet relief, and then Cougar turns around from the passenger seat and quirks a smile of relief at them all, and Jensen hears the moment his heart starts beating again. 

 

The walk through the jungle to their extraction point is going to take a lot longer with about thirty kids, never mind that they were supposed to be driving to it, but Jensen gets a message through saying they might be delayed fairly quickly. It’s kind of amazing to watch the Losers interacting with children, though Jensen won’t say anything about it until after they’ve dropped the kids off. 

 

He handles it well, which isn’t very surprising given Em. He learns little bits of Quechua and Aymara, teaches them little bits of American slang. He keeps chatting, his voice low and easy, which helps to normalise the situation even if they don’t always understand what he’s saying. He tells jokes that they can understand, and encourages as much joy and hope as he possibly can. He gives piggyback rides when they get too tired, and plays tag with them when they need to break for the evening but they’re too shaken to sleep, and gives them whatever’s left of his water and rations. 

 

Pooch pulls him aside at one point, asks Jensen to teach him his ways. It’s no secret that Pooch and Jolene have been trying for a kid for a while now, though Jensen’s not actually sure if Pooch knows that Jolene’s currently a few weeks pregnant. He shouldn't really know, but it's always been his habit to keep his tabs on his team's family, in case of emergencies. Pooch is keen to help these children, but clearly skittish of actually interacting with them, which is honestly kind of adorable. Jensen introduces him to Luis, one of the more outgoing kids, and watches in fond amusement as Luis adopts Pooch, bringing him around to meet all of his friends.

 

Clay clearly likes the concept of children, without being sure what to do with the actual reality of them. He tries to be quiet and gentle, and looks incredibly bemused whenever one of them wants to hang out with him. Jensen definitely records videos whenever he thinks he can get away with it, because Jolene will cry laughing if she sees this, and also because it’s weirdly satisfying to see Clay trying so hard to be good at something and failing so spectacularly. 

 

Roque doesn’t really have the patience for kids, which isn’t that surprising. He was on board to save them, but he’s always hated jungle treks anyway, and having multiple children trying to climb on top of him as they walk doesn’t seem to be improving his mood any. He’s obviously worried about their probable court martial, but it’s translating as a disinterest in actually interacting with the children they saved. Hilariously, the kids seem to have mostly taken this as a challenge, or are just naturally contrary, and flock to Roque despite his best efforts. 

 

Cougar’s the one who surprises him the most, which is rare these days. Jensen knows Cougar like the back of his hand, and when he thinks about it, he shouldn’t have been surprised that Cougar’s so good with kids. He has five siblings, and at least eight nephews and nieces, and for all that he’s said his relationship with his family is contentious, he tends to visit them at least once or twice a year. Theoretically, Jensen knew he knows how to behave around young kids. In practice, watching Cougar chat in Spanish with the kids as they walk through the jungle is a form of torture. They’re traumatised enough that Cougar has to start most of the conversations, which is pretty rare normally, and he’s actively trying to cheer them up, so he’s constantly smiling, laughing brightly, joking. He gives the smallest kid in the group a nearly constant piggyback ride, and helps Jensen lift them over any blockades in the path.

 

Jensen’s never actually brought any of the team to Laconia, New Hampshire, because on the rare occasions they do get leave, everyone’s got something to do with their time. He’s never even offered, never considered making the Losers real people in Andi’s life, or vice versa. Watching Cougar playing with these kids, he has a sudden vision of Cougar doing the same with Em, lifting her up and swinging her around, teasing her, or maybe the two of them teasing Jensen. His throat suddenly tight, he focuses back on the path. It’s better not to think about the things he won’t get in life, and maybe it was better not knowing how good Cougar could fit into even his civilian life, but he does now. Just something else to suppress. Whatever.

 

When they finally get to the clearing, there’s somehow nothing better than hearing the children cheer as they run forward towards the bird. Jensen helps load them in, says goodbye to the kids that he’s made friends with, warns the pilots that they better make sure that their first stop is a hospital. 

 

As the bird starts to take off, there’s a faint whine in his headset, and Jensen looks around for the source. Pooch and Roque are high-fiving, Cougar is waving up at the kids still visible in the window, Clay smiling with satisfaction. Jensen can feel this moment etching itself into his brain permanently. It’s a familiar noise, and it takes him another few seconds to place it, by which time everyone else seems to have finally noticed it. He’s already on the radar, and he can see a DJ on the screen, but that can’t be right, it can’t. He’s flipping through frequencies, and then he’s got it. The same person as before, Max, giving a kill order. They race forward, but it’s too fucking late. 

 

As Cougar sinks to the ground, praying, as Clay picks up a still burning teddy bear, as the smell of burning flesh sinks into Jensen’s very fucking soul, he realises the truth of the matter: this isn’t another Santa Maria, this is so much fucking worse. 

 

————

 

Jensen’s ordering the next round for the group at the bar, and as he’s waiting on the bartender, a guy sidles up to him. He looks Filipino, a little shorter than Jensen, good hair, handsome smile. 

 

“Hi,” he says, giving Jensen a careful look up and down.

 

“Hey,” Jensen replies, and he abruptly halts his immediate reaction to shut down the conversation as he remembers that everyone knows, and it’s been fine. It’s fine. “I’m Jake.”

 

“Nick,” says the guy, settling in next to him at the bar. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jake.” 

 

“You too. So, what are you doing in Boston?”

 

They talk as they wait to be served, and Nick has a wicked sense of humour, and a warm laugh. When all the drinks have finally arrived, and Nick has joked about how many there are, Jensen looks back over at the table, to see whether or not he can continue to delay his return. Pooch gives him a nod, saying something to Cougar as he does, and from here Jensen can see how Cougar’s slumped down in the seat. Next to him, Clay and Aisha are chatting, possibly playing footsie, and Jensen can appreciate the need for drinks at the table.

 

“Afraid I’m just getting a round for my friends, and I should probably rejoin them,” Jensen says, and there’s genuine regret in his voice, because Nick is cute, and flirting rarely comes this easy to him, “But if you’re still around a little later we could, um, hang out a bit more?”

 

Nick’s smile is slow and very encouraging. “I’ll hold you to that,” he says, and Jensen grins back.

 

“I’ll see you later,” he says, and then slowly balances the tray of drinks, and heads back to their table, handing out the drinks as appropriate.

 

“Huh,” says Pooch, seemingly lost in thought, “Wild.”

 

“What’s wild?” asks Jensen, as he takes his seat at the table, because apparently he’s still and always a masochist.

 

“Just thinking about, y’know,” says Pooch, with a nod at Nick, sitting over at the bar. “Thinking about how Roque didn’t know. Though I guess that may have been a good thing.”

 

“Roque did know,” says Jensen unthinkingly, going to sip his drink, and then looks around the table at the sudden pause. He glances at them all, and while Aisha looks encouraging, Clay is frowning slightly. Pooch looks surprised, perhaps a little hurt. Cougar’s hat hides his eyes, and his mouth is the neutral line he makes when he doesn’t want anyone to read him, not even Jensen. It’s a debate whether or not to keep talking, because there are secrets here that aren’t his to tell, but also fuck Roque for making Jensen keep his secrets even now. Fuck him for betraying them and fuck him for ruining all the memories, good and bad. “It wasn’t something that bothered him,” he settles on in the end. He glances through his lashes at Clay to see how he responds, curious, as he has been for years, as to how much Clay truly understands about his teammates. 

 

Clay looks thoughtful, but it’s Aisha who looks knowing.

 

“Man, I can’t believe you told Roque and not me,” says Pooch, taking a long swig of his drink, barely a hint of bitterness in his voice.

 

“I didn’t tell him,” says Jensen exasperated, stumbling with not wanting to betray the trust of a dead traitor, “He just, uh, knew.”

 

Suddenly, Cougar’s lips are pursing, and even with the brim of his hat blocking the majority of his face, Jensen can tell he’s scowling now. He hisses out an angry sigh, and looks pointedly away from the rest of the table. There’s a sad, angry mood to the table now, the same way there always is when Roque comes up in conversation. Even as Cougar forcibly relaxes his suddenly tensed up shoulders, turns back to the table, he won’t look at Jensen, like it’s his fault that they started discussing Roque and not Pooch’s.

 

“So I vote we talk about, like, not this anymore. Not him. Hey Aisha, how’s that collection of ears going?”

 

She grins, the feral smile Jensen’s pretty sure she’s cultivated at least partially to fuck with him. “I mean I’m always looking for more additions, if you’re offering Jensen.”

 

————

 

They hide their military gear as well as they can, walk to a town, get a drink. 

 

They move to a slightly bigger place, where they can go a little more unobserved. Try to get a method of income so that they can afford to live. They’re not a team anymore, because you have to be people to be a team, and Jensen’s pretty sure that none of them are people. 

 

He feels empty inside, feels worse than he’s felt in nearly a decade. Doesn’t know how to say anything about it to the others, because they clearly feel the same. It’s been three weeks. Pooch cries himself to sleep every night. Cougar hasn’t said a single word since he prayed over the bodies of those poor fucking children. Clay is sinking further and further into an alcoholic daze, and Roque has lost all semblance of emotions behind his eyes. 

 

Jensen is entirely adrift, and he doesn’t know how to pull himself back in, doesn’t know how to pull the others back in. Doesn’t know if he wants to. Doesn’t know if he should. 

 

He gets his hands on a charger, and boots his laptop up in the cramped motel room they’re sharing. When he gets to CNN, and discovers that the world doesn’t just think they’re dead, they’ve been accused of causing the accident. That Andi’s been told he died a child killer. That Em–

 

He sits there, seriously considering eating his gun. It must be at least an hour, maybe more. Just sitting there, handgun in his lap, unable to think over the constant white noise in his head. He thinks someone enters the room at one point, but they leave again pretty quickly. The only thing he’s holding onto is that if Andi ever found out that he survived the crash and then gave up instead of making his way back to her and Em, she’d resurrect him just to kill him herself. 

 

“Hey,” says a low, gentle voice, and when Jensen looks up, Pooch is crouching beside the bed, looking at him with concern. “Hey, Jensen. Give me the sidearm, okay.”

 

Jensen doesn’t actually know how to focus his vision on another human person for a second, and he starts laughing. How do you even forget something that basic? Pooch grabs the weapon, disarms it and puts it away. 

 

“I’m not saying this isn’t bad, because it’s the fucking worst, but none of that, okay?” says Pooch, voice soft but full of worry. 

 

“I know,” says Jensen, “I know. Andi would never forgive me.”

 

“She’s not the only one. You’re like a brother to me, you know?” Pooch sits next to him on the bed, pushing the laptop away. 

 

“Yeah, I know. You are to me as well,” says Jensen. For all that he’s good at saying things, he’s never been very good at actually talking, and this is a conversation he doesn’t know how to have. “I wasn’t. I wouldn’t. Just so you know.”

 

“It was fucked up, you’re allowed to be fucked up about it,” offers Pooch, and Jensen leans into him. 

 

“Being fucked up about it isn’t gonna get us home though, is it?”

 

Pooch shrugs, as if to ask, _is that the most important thing right now_?

 

“How’d you know to come find me, anyway?” Jensen asks, because that’s that. He had his moment, and he’s going to keep fucking moving, keep going, because there’s nothing else on the table, no other option.

 

“Cougar got me,” admits Pooch, and that in itself says a lot, when Cougar’s been acting like he’s never met any of them before, when he’s so far away in his own mind that Jensen wonders if he’ll ever talk again. 

 

“Okay,” says Jensen, “Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to get proper jobs and some more serious money. Somewhere more stable to live, so we have a proper base of operations. Clay’s going to figure out how to get us the fuck home, and we’re going live as normally as we can until then, and we’re going to keep busy. I’ll mock up some credit scores that’ll let us rent apartments or something.” He’s pacing now, refusing to sit still, refusing to let himself sink back into that place of emotions and darkness.

 

“Okay,” says Pooch, a slow smile creeping onto his face, the first smile Jensen’s seen since… Well, since. “That was a pretty quick turnaround.”

 

“I’m not one to dwell on the past,” Jensen says brightly, because the best truths come out so glibly no one even thinks about the reality of them. 

 

“The guys at the garage would be willing to give me more work,” Pooch says.

 

“Of course they would, you’re the best,” says Jensen. “That leaves the rest of us.”

 

There’s movement at the door, and Jensen’s still full of enough nervous energy that he spins to face it, hand flying to his holster without thinking. Cougar stands in the doorway, eyes sunken, hair greasy, eyes hinting at panic as he scans Jensen. 

 

“Oh, hey Cougs,” Jensen offers, acting as casual as he knows how, “We’re talking about getting proper jobs so we can get out of this fucking motel. You in?” 

 

Cougar nods slowly, eyes flicking between Jensen and Pooch with concern. 

 

“Jorge, from the garage, mentioned that they’re looking for more workers up at the factory,” says Pooch, and given he’s playing along with Jensen in everything being absolutely _fine_ , Cougar relaxes somewhat. 

 

“Factory works sounds doable, right Cougs?” says Jensen cheerfully.

 

There’s a long moment of silence, that he doesn’t expect to get broken, and then Cougar looks him directly in the eyes and, in a hoarse voice, says “ _Si._ ” 

 

If Cougar’s willing to pretend that Jensen is fine, and five minutes ago he didn’t have to run to get Pooch to deescalate the situation, then Jensen’s willing to pretend that this isn't the first time he’s heard Cougar’s voice in weeks. “Cool, because we’re going to need more resources to get Pooch home in the next eight months,” he says, turning to watch Pooch’s face light up in hope and confusion as he announces, “After all, Jolene will kill you if she has to go through labor on her own.”

 

————

 

They’re flying to the Azores tomorrow, because there’s clearly something on that fucking boat, even if it’s not clear what, exactly. As ever, they’ve found themselves at a watering hole, drinking and playing cards, and actively not thinking about what’s coming. 

 

Cougar’s been off all day. Longer maybe. It sucks on a couple of different levels, because they fucking talked about this, right? They sorted this. Unless it’s something else, some new thing, some new problem. Jensen can’t actually decide if that would be better or worse. 

 

He goes to the bathroom, and when he gets back, Cougar’s left the table, the others unsure where he went. 

 

“He’s probably found some cutie,” says Pooch, and Jensen tries not to look to unimpressed. He may have, that’s definitely one of his go-to coping mechanisms, but Jensen would be surprised. He was definitely in the kind of foul mood that normally leads to self-isolation and drinking too much, which it would be better to nip in the bud, particularly given the parachute jump they’ll have to make tomorrow. 

 

“Yeah, okay, deal me out,” he says, “I’ll catch you guys later.” The thing about he and Cougar always being somewhat co-dependent means that no one so much as blinks twice, even now. Maybe they suspect he has a crush, but honestly Jensen gets the impression that it’s never even occurred to them that he might see any of them in a non-platonic manner. He grabs his jacket and drink, and retreats to the bar to scope out the room, see if he can spot Cougar from there.   


 

“Seriously, what’s up?”’ Jensen tries, when he eventually finds Cougar, tucked away in a booth in the corner of the room, barely visible, hat firmly over as much of his face as possible.   


 

“Nothing,” snaps Cougar, and gets up and stalks off towards the door. He’s being a dick, but lashing out like this isn’t Cougar’s usual MO, and it’s normally a sign of something really weighing on him, so Jensen grabs his phone, downs his drink, and races off after him. 

 

He catches up with Cougar in a dark side alley, the kind you’d duck into to lose a tail, and Jensen would be insulted if he weren’t kind of amused.   


 

“You remember I’m a snake eater, right? I’ve been trained for this shit too, you know.”

 

Cougar curses lowly in Spanish, before slowing down enough that Jensen can keep pace with him.   


 

“What’s on your mind?” asks Jensen, “Fair warning, I’m going to keep asking until you tell me.” 

 

Cougar sighs a little, before leading them down the alley to another road, this one by a canal. They walk down the stairs until they’re walking along the canal. 

 

“C’mon, what is it?”

 

“I was thinking about your t-shirt,” says Cougar, looking out at the canal as they walk.  


 

Jensen looks down, at the binary for ‘fuck the fuck off’ splayed across his chest.  


 

“Not that one,” says Cougar, as though he knows exactly what face Jensen is making despite not looking at him. “The one Andi got for you.”

 

“The bi one.”   


 

“Yeah,” says Cougar, with a heavy sigh.   


 

It’s mostly silent down here, until some sort of waterfowl speeds across the canal, breaking the tension. 

 

_Tell me how I’m meant to be reacting here_ , Jensen is about to say, when Cougar takes a deep breath.

 

“When I was sixteen, I found out I had an aunt. I found a photograph from when they were children. My mother had an older sister who I had never heard of before. Pilar.”   


 

He pauses again, and Jensen can guess where this is going, but he isn’t sure what it means, exactly, other than Cougar’s probably been fighting against a lot of internalised bullshit to be good with him. 

 

“She was a _chancla_ , and her family found out, so they threw her out. Just. Got rid of her. I would never have known I had an aunt if I had not found that picture.”  


 

Cougar’s tricky about touch when he’s emotional. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it really truly doesn’t. Jensen tries to telegraph his movement as he leans closer, leaves the line of his side close enough that Cougar can close or widen the gap as he so chooses. Cougar, contrary as ever, keeps the exact same distance.  


 

“ _Mi madre_ throws her sister out, but your sister buys you that shirt,” he says hesitatingly, “I suppose– no. I know I would like a family that supportive.”  


 

There are a lot of things Jensen could say here. He could point out that Andi may have supported him, but his parents never did. He could remind Cougar that for all his parents disapprove of his job as a sniper, they haven’t disowned him for it. He could wonder aloud about how old his mother was, whether she’d had a choice in what happened to her sister. There are a lot of things he could say, but instead he comes to a stop, turns to face the canal, and watches the moonlight play on the water until he can see Cougar in his peripheral vision coming to a halt by his side and doing the same. 

 

“You know we all support you, right?” He says instead. “You guys and Andi, you’re my family. That goes both ways. We’ll support you, in whatever.”  


 

Now, finally, Cougar leans into his side, warm against his arm.  


 

“ _Gracias_.”

 

“ _De nada_.”

 

They walk back to the motel in relative silence, Jensen filling the space with a running commentary on a film franchise Cougar hasn’t seen, on facts about Egyptian history, on sea creatures. Anything he can think of, it doesn’t matter, just a quiet, soothing patter of nonsense that can wash over them, smooth out the sharp edges of the conversation.

 

————

 

They’re doing a blood drive in town, it’s not worth much money, but given they’re trying to get as much as they possibly can, anything helps. Cougar finds out about it from some girls at the factory, and brings it up over dinner with Jensen and Pooch.

 

It’s been three months and they’ve got apartments now, all in the same block; Pooch has one that he shares with Roque, Jensen and Cougar share one, and Clay has his own. Jensen would complain that Clay’s still getting perks of being brass, except it sounds wildly lonely to have a one bedroom apartment right now. If he couldn’t sit on the sofa late at night with his laptop, and hear Cougar moving around the apartment, then he’s not sure he’d be able to stay out of his own head. 

 

Roque and Clay are out, probably gambling on the cock fights, as fucking usual. Pooch made dinner, some rough version of a jambalaya with whatever ingredients they had to hand, and Cougar managed to get his hands on a bottle of red wine. It’s been weirdly normal, which is part of their routine now. Sometimes you keep on living, and you find a routine, and even though everything’s fucked always, it’s still got semblances of normality. 

 

“They’re doing a blood drive in town,” says Cougar, after they’ve polished off their first plates, and are doling out seconds. “A couple hundred bolivianos per person, someone said.”

 

“That’s not bad,” Pooch says thoughtfully, “What day?”

 

“Wednesday through Saturday, in the little clinic.” 

 

“There was an disease that infected like six or seven Bolivian blood banks when I was a kid,” says Jensen, and the others are so used to him just knowing these odd little pieces of trivia that neither of them question it. “Chagas disease I think.”

 

“They’ll be open after your shift ends, right?” checks Pooch, and Cougar nods. “Cool, how’s Thursday for you?”

 

“I’ll have to check my calendar,” drawls Jensen, and Pooch shoves his elbow off the table in retaliation. 

 

It’s a joke, it was very much a joke, but later that night, while Cougar’s doing his nightly routine of core body stretching, Jensen finds himself on his laptop. It doesn’t actually make a difference, because he’s clean, because no one in the country even fucking knows, because no one can actually stop him, but. Article 16 of a Supreme Decree in 1997: the permanent prohibition of ‘ _bisexuales promiscuos_ ’ from giving blood. 

 

No one would ever know, and it’s a bad law, and they need the fucking money. 

 

He still seriously debates getting a tattoo on Wednesday.

 

————

 

The boat turns into something from Jensen’s worst fucking nightmares, and he’s had some pretty bad fucking nightmares over the years. Getting shot truly sucks, and he hasn’t forgotten that, but it turns out that being beaten up and thrown down multiple fights of metal stairs is a pretty close second. 

 

He’s so relieved when he hears the bird with the team taking off that he doesn’t even think about what it means for himself, just throws a body overboard and takes cover, hoping against hope that they’re dumb enough to think it was him. The gun fires, and Jensen, tucked into a crawlspace, goes limp with relief. 

 

Biding his time isn’t that bad, but he can’t quite let the part of his brain that cares about people turn off. Cougar’s going to blame himself. Aisha’s going to try to get them to rally onwards. If he doesn’t get himself off this fucking ship as soon as possible, he’ll never catch up to his team. If he doesn’t scuttle this fucking ship, Max gets nuclear capabilities and Em doesn’t get to live to ten. He works well under pressure, but he works more efficiently when the people he cares about are in danger, which is something he hopes none of his enemies ever fucking realise. 

 

Setting off in a stolen lifeboat, Jensen makes his way over to the wreckage of the two ships. He’s fairly sure this is where the Losers will be, but if they’re not, he’ll figure it out. The _Winter Mariner_ slowly sinking into the surf behind him is extraordinarily satisfying to watch, but he’s on a fucking timer. Max is clearly going into his endgame, if he’s trying to get his hands on nuclear weapons. Fuck. 

 

He’s not letting himself about what happens if the others didn’t make it, because they always fucking make it. They have to. They _have_ to. He kicks up the speed on his boat, just in case. Better to arrive before the wreckage sinks entirely, or before he loses sight of the direction the other lifeboats went. Even from a distance, he can make out a huddled group of figures standing around on top of what’s left of the deck, arguing it looks like. _That’s my team_ , he thinks with affection, cutting the engine so he can rock up in the most dramatic way possible, because what’s the point otherwise? 

 

Clay sits down, giving up on the argument, and Aisha is giving him a talking to, and Pooch looks like he’s about to walk away from them to, what, drown on his own? And Cougar sits, curled into an almost foetal position, hurt maybe?

 

_Fuck it_ , thinks Jensen, and guns the motor again, and yelling out across the waves, “Guys! Hey guys! So c’mon, seriously, tell me straight… Did you miss me?”

 

Watching them all spring into alertness is a sight to see. As he pulls up and explains his daring escape, he’s enjoying having the opportunity to remind them that he earned his green beret, that his skills extend beyond Javascript. He’d enjoy it more, though, if Pooch wasn’t surreptitiously wiping his eyes, and if Cougar looked less like he was considering exploding Jensen’s heart with his mind. Clay looks amused and perhaps a little guilty, serves him right for underestimating Jensen, and weirdly enough Aisha is the one who looks most obviously relieved.

 

He’s still talking, trying to persuade them that this is just another day at the office when Cougar launches himself at Jensen, wrapping him up in a tight hug. 

 

He’s warm, and his hair is soft against Jensen’s neck, his hat flying away with the momentum of the leap. He smells of sweat and gunpowder, and he clings tight enough to hurt. Jensen thinks he can feel tears trickling onto his shoulder, and while there is definitely a large part of him that wants to keep standing here, holding Cougar up, there is a time and a place, and this is neither of them. Besides, it’s poor form to hold anyone’s reaction to thinking that you’re dead against them. 

 

“ _Madre de Dios,_ Jake, _hijo de puta_ ,” murmurs Cougar, right against his neck, right into his ear, and it’s definitely safer to stop this now than to let it continue.

 

“Get off of me, cowboy!” Jensen exclaims, a hair too loud to be believable, he thinks, but everyone’s too shaken up right now to notice, “I ain’t never felt more heterosexual in myentire life, and you got to go spoil it!” That garners a slight raised eyebrow from Pooch, but when he starts to put Cougar down, Cougar gets his legs under him, takes a step back, seemingly reassured that this really is Jensen in the flesh.

 

————

 

Somehow having a routine is almost worse, because it really reminds him how different this is from his real life. They’re having a normal night, dinner at the apartment, ended up meeting Clay and Roque in a local bar. Cougar and Roque are chatting with some of the factory workers, and Jensen knows he should probably go over and say hi. 

 

It was Em’s birthday yesterday, and it was her first ever birthday without her uncle, without even a skype call. He’s dead, and it’s so hard to just keep on going like it’s a normal day, even in their new fucking normal. Yesterday they got him drunk, and pretended not to notice when he cried, and when everyone else had gone to bed, he watched all of Em’s matches on YouTube and ordered a t-shirt of her team. Today, he’s supposed to have pulled it together, so he had breakfast, and he went to work, and he helped with dinner, and he came out here. He’s just got no interest in playing along with the status quo right now. He waves at the table, but he goes up to the bar instead, and orders a shot. 

 

There’s a guy on the end of the bar giving him a familiar look, and he’s spent the last five years carefully ignoring those looks when he’s in bars with his team, when he’s anywhere that isn’t on leave at least a continent away from anyone he knows. The issue is, he’s sick of playing by the rules of a dead man. What’s anyone going to fucking do to him? 

 

He texts Cougar, _heading out soon, probably gonna sleep out tonight, just need some space still_ , and watches Cougar receive it, look up to give him a worried look. Jensen shrugs, and because Cougar is his best friend, he sends a text that just reads _Em?_ When Jensen nods, Cougar gives him a nod, and turns back to the table, to the conversation. Pooch and Clay have joined them by now, and Jensen knows that if any of them ask after him, Cougar will make sure they give him the space they’ve asked for. 

 

He orders two more shots, downs one, and looks straight back at the guy in the corner, nods at the shot, and leaves the bar.

 

Two minutes later, the man catches up with him in the street outside. 

 

“Leonel,” he offers, and even in the dim light of the streetlights, he’s handsome. Nearly as tall as Jensen himself, though not as broad, with short hair and warm eyes. He’s smiling, casual enough to be an old hand at this sort of sneaking around. Probably a few years older than Jensen. 

 

“Jake,” he says, “It’s my pleasure.” 

 

“Not only, I hope,” says Leonel with a smirk, and Jensen grins back. It may have been a while since he played this particular game, but he hasn’t forgotten the rules. 

 

“It was pretty loud in that bar, huh?” says Jensen, looking airily around the street as they walk, keeping a careful distance in case of trouble. 

 

“It was, it was. I live nearby, if you want to get a quieter drink,” says Leonel, right on cue, and Jensen lets him lead the way into the night. 

 

————

 

Tomorrow, they’re going to sneak into Max’s base, and end this once and for all. All this, these literal years of their lives. After all the no good, terrible, fucking exhausting bullshit they’ve been through, and this is it. 

 

They sit in a circle, passing a bottle of rum between them, swigging it straight. 

 

They’ve skyped with Jolene and Andi collectively, and Pooch and Jensen both separately recorded videos to send, just in case. 

 

He sits in a circle with these people who are his family, who know everything about him, the good and the bad, and stuck with him regardless. It’s more than a little humbling. It’s more than a little scary. On some level, he wishes that he didn’t care about them, because the odds seem real fucking slim that they all get out of New Jerusalem alive, and he probably can’t actually handle losing any of them at this point. He’s never been good at not caring, not on any level, so he sucks it up and accepts that it’s going to hurt, and takes another swig of rum for good measure.

 

Eventually Clay and Aisha retire together, and Jensen lets himself dream about what it might have been like to have something like that. Even if he’s not quite sure about the exact nature of Clay and Aisha’s relationship, a relationship would have been nice. 

 

“You going to pass that on?” asks Pooch, and Cougar laughs as Jensen hurriedly passes the bottle of rum. It’s not the same, but it's still good.This is still so good.

 

When they’ve finished the bottle, Pooch retires for the night with a half-hearted salute, and Jensen is left sitting opposite Cougar. 

 

“ _Ándale_ ,” says Cougar softly, and gets up, walking over to the door. Jensen follows, as he always does. They make their way to the balcony, and sit outside, looking out over the city below. It’s high up enough that the sounds of the city are all hushed, and Jensen can feel the weight of his life hanging in the air above him. 

 

“If we… If we make it out, if we kill Max, stop the nukes, and get out, and it’s all sorted… What are you planning on doing, Coug? Where are you going to go?” He doesn’t really want to look at Cougar as he asks, because it feels like a surefire way to finally give up too much information. Give up the last secret he’s kept close to his chest, all these years. Cougar stays deadly silent, and Jensen knows him well enough to know that he’s waiting.

 

When Jensen looks up, Cougar is smiling at him. His eyes are soft, his hair loose around his shoulder, hat somewhere inside. He’s in a thin white henley, and the moonlight highlights the contrast with his skin. He looks delicate and gentle, in a way that baffles Jensen, who has seen Cougar throw himself off buildings to get the perfect headshot. Who has seen him bloody and bruised and in the middle of a hundred different fights. 

 

“Jake,” he says, so quietly that Jensen almost doesn’t hear it, “We’ll go wherever you want to go.”

 

His heart feels overly full, and this much hope isn’t good for anyone, so Jensen tears his eyes away to look back over the city.

 

“If we don’t at least check in with New Hampshire, Andi and Jolene will hunt us down,” he says, and is exceedingly proud of how he manages to keep his voice even.

 

————

 

When the apartment block started burning, they probably should have had a more serious reaction, but instead, Jensen and Cougar just head to the nearest bar. They can probably flirt their way into beds for the night, and they can deal with finding new accommodation tomorrow after the shift at the factory instead of at three in the morning. Meeting a pair of cute roommates is a definite bonus, and as they all walk home together, Jensen thinks that this should probably feel weirder than it does. He and Cougar walking side by side, bracketed by a pair of beautiful women who are taking them home. 

 

Later, during, when the woman he’s eating out, Deysi, is calling out loudly, Jensen briefly wonders if they can be heard next door, if this should be weirder. Even later, when he hears the cries of her housemate, Melany he thinks she said, it doesn’t seem that odd.

 

In the bright light of morning, having slept well, he recognises that for the foolhardy thinking of a tipsy, sleep-deprived man. It’s fucking weird. Jensen’s not even sure how to go into the kitchen, knowing both that Cougar will be there, and that he will have heard as much as Jensen did, if not more. This is remarkably similar to an anxiety dream he used to get, back when he first joined the Losers, only that ended with him getting dishonourably discharged from the army, and he’s pretty sure you can’t discharge someone who’s already dead. 

 

“ _Buenas dias_ ,” greets Deysi, kissing him on the cheek when Jensen finally makes his way to the kitchen. Cougar’s sitting at the table next to Melany, eating some egg-based breakfast, and talking in low, rapid Spanish, managing well despite the dialect differences. 

 

“Hey yourself,” Jensen replies, awkwardly, too aware of how little he wants to make eye contact with anyone in the room. 

 

“ _¿Ch’aqui?_ ” she asks, frowning prettily, and it’s not her fault that Jensen is suddenly feeling very weird and full of regret about getting off with someone just a very thin wall away from Cougar, so he nods a little pathetically, and makes the biggest puppy dog eyes he can manage. She laughs at him, and passes him a mug of coffee, which he takes happily. 

 

He’s hoping to do what he does every other goddamn day in Bolivia, which is to say, go into work, suppress the things he can’t let himself think about, and be fine by the time their shift ends to act normally and get done whatever needs doing, or drink until he wants to sleep. A quick glance at his phone nixes that plan, however, and he glances up at Cougar, who is very focused on Melany. 

 

“Cougar, Cougar!” he hisses, looking at his phone again to confirm what he just read.

 

“ _¿Mande?_ ” he responds, not looking away from his current conversation. 

 

“Hey, fucker, check your phone! We’ve got to get back to the apartment, I need my laptop asap, we’ve got a job, and maybe even a way home!” 

 

That jerks him around to look at Jensen, digging in his pocket for his phone as he does. “ _No mames_ ,” he warns, and then sees the text from Clay confirming that they may have a route back to the US of A, but they’ll need as much as they can get on one Aisha al-Fadhil by noon today. 

 

Quite how Cougar gets Deysi and Melany to not only give them a lift home, but wait for three hours while Jensen gets all the research they need, and they prepare for this literal graveyard meeting, Jensen doesn’t know. He thinks he probably doesn’t _want_ to know, even if the answer is just pure old-fashioned Cougar charm. He even talks the girls into giving them lifts to the cemetery, and so Jensen sits on the back of Deysi’s back, aware that he’s been kind of rude most of this morning but barely able to focus on anything that isn’t the thought of seeing Andi again, of seeing Em. 

 

As they pull up, Cougar goes to kiss Melany, and Jensen thinks, _oh, yeah, I guess_ , and then Cougar goes to kiss Deysi as well, and Jensen thinks, _yeah, that seems about right_. The rest of the team are laughing, and Cougar tips his hat right in Jensen’s fucking face with a smirk, and he’s honestly the best and worst person Jensen’s ever been into. 

 

————

 

Cougar takes two or three shots in quick succession, and Jensen tries to stay calm, but he’s on the verge of a panic attack. Clay killed Max, shot him and threw him off the fucking oil rig, and got dragged right down with him, and even if the rig were over water it would be hard to survive a fall from that height, but it’s not over water anymore. Then Max reappeared, because twins, fucking of _course_ , twins. Aisha got a few good stabs in, but nothing that can’t be healed if Max makes it off this goddamn fucking oil rig, and then she had to run. Jensen has no idea where she went. If she's still alive. 

 

Cougar took his few shots diving into an empty elevator shaft to take out some of Max’s people shooting at Jensen from the floor below, and while the team were all wearing bulletproof vests, they were only Type II, and they may well have gotten wet in the swim down into this base. So there’s no way of knowing if Cougar’s vest has done any good. Jensen got him out of the shaft and onto the ground floor, which is were their escape route is, along with the three SNUKES they stole in L.A. all those months ago, but his brain is turning at 500 miles a minute. Cougar’s got two visible bulletholes in his shirt, one in the shoulder, and one is a gutshot. Cougar insisted he was fine, but he’s been stumbling, and there’s clearly blood coming from somewhere, and while Jensen’s been able to drag him through the corridors and keep firing, he doesn’t know how he’s going to swim out while supporting Cougar. 

 

“Okay, okay, okay,” says Jensen, putting Cougar on the floor while he tries to set up the SNUKES. “We’ve got this, we’ve got this. You wanna start swimming, and I’ll just put the countdown in and catch up with you.”

 

Cougar coughs wetly, and everything in Jensen’s brain rebels at that fucking sound.

 

“Jake, I can’t swim on my own, some of those shots hit,” and blood rasps in his mouth as he talks.

 

“Okay, no problem, I’ll carry you out,” says Jensen brightly. “Do you think five minutes is a gives us enough time to get out? The blast radius on these things is fucking nasty, but if Pooch is waiting with an escape boat, as planned, then we should be able to gun it and make it out in five, right? That tube was what, three minutes max?”

 

“Jensen,” says Cougar, “Jensen please. You get out, and I’ll watch the SNUKES, make sure no one disarms them. Just get out, and I’ll hold them off.”

 

His heart is pounding so loudly in his ears that it’s drowning out anything that isn’t the two of them. The adrenaline is all that’s keeping his hands steady, and there isn’t the time to argue about this with Cougar and set up these bombs.

 

“Just… Just get as far away as you can, and don't look back,” says Cougar, fierce as he can manage.

 

“Go _fuck yourself!_ ” snaps Jensen, unaware that he's going to respond until he already has, “Fuck you, I’m not leaving you behind! Not fucking happening!” 

 

“Jensen, we can’t get out just the two of us,” says Cougar and he’s right, he’s _right_ , and Jensen realises that he must have gotten hit by some of the shrapnel from the grenade Jensen had thrown earlier, or something, because he’s looking way too injured for one paltry handgun. “Go on, _please_. Jake, please.”

 

The SNUKES are set up, and Jensen should be barricading the fucking door, because Cougar’s right, they don’t want anyone trying to disarm them, but he can’t move because he can’t leave Cougar and he can’t bring him on his own, and this is a nightmare. 

 

“At least I’ll go out with a bang,” says Cougar with a smirk, and Jensen _hates_ him. 

 

He’s still frozen in horror when a ceiling panel hits the floor. They swing their weapons around, as Aisha drops to the floor, Clay following directly after. 

 

“Hello, boys,” says Aisha, grinning wild and carefree, blood splatters across her, and a fierce joy in her eyes.

 

“Sitrep, now!” orders Clay, landing much more heavily, and Jensen feels relief in every cell of his body. 

 

“SNUKES are armed, we still need to barricade the room, to stop anyone from disarming them. Haven’t started the countdown yet, but I’ve given us five minutes to get clear, which should be enough if Pooch is in place. Cougs has been hit, he’s doing pretty badly, but he’ll make it until we’re with Pooch, yeah?”

 

Cougar nods, and he looks just as relieved as Jensen feels. Aisha’s already barricading the door, hiding the SNUKES as best she can in case someone makes it inside, so Jensen starts helping her. Clay is helping Cougar into his scuba equipment, and checking his wounds, and suddenly it’s bad, but manageable. They might actually make it out of this one.

 

“Believe me, I’m not complaining, but we were pretty sure you were both dead, what gives?”

 

“Nothing can kill me,” says Aisha lightly and he’s fairly sure it’s a joke.

 

“I managed to get a hand on one of the rungs as I went past. Still fell several floors, and gonna be bruised as all hell tomorrow, but nothing fatal,” says Clay, probing at Cougar’s torso. “One through and through, a few cracked ribs, I think one’s punctured a lung, but not too badly it seems like. We’ll get you a chest drain on the boat.” 

 

“I found Clay dazed and barely conscious when I was escaping from Max, we had to go through the ducts to avoid getting caught again,” says Aisha, as they finish hiding the SNUKES in the selfsame vents. 

 

“Okay,” says Jensen, “Now all of you get in the water, and start swimming. I’ll start the countdown and catch up.”

 

“Jensen,” says Cougar warningly, and Jensen grins. 

 

“Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you, there's nothing that could keep me here, promise.” 

 

Cougar nods, and slips into the water, followed by Clay and Aisha. Jensen takes a moment to look around the dingy basement, still blood-smeared, but now a site of victory and not despair, and starts the countdown. As he heads over to the water, he notices Cougar’s stupid hat in the corner of the room, and grabs it out of instinct, before slipping into the water, and swimming the fuck away from New Jerusalem.

 

He breaches the surface in two minutes and twenty-three seconds, because survival has always been a major motivator for him, and swears when he realises that there’s no goddamn boat. No way they can swim out of the blast radius in time, and even if they could, Cougar needs medical assistance sooner rather than later. 

 

Cougar’s treading water next to him, and he seems mostly just relieved that Jensen did in fact follow them up to the surface.

 

“You left your hat,” says Jensen stupidly, and carefully puts it on top of his head, and this isn’t the ending he wanted, but they’re together, and Max has fucking lost, and he’ll take his wins where he can get them. 

 

“Hey Losers,” calls a voice, “Do you guys want a ride?” Pooch has gotten his hands on a helicopter somehow, and there are rope ladders dangling from it, skimming the ocean’s surface nearby. Aisha’s already scrambling up one, Clay holding it steady for her, and Pooch is grinning so widely it’s visible even through the cockpit. 

 

“Let’s go,” says Jensen, pulling Cougar over to the rope ladder, making him go up first, hope a tangible thing in his chest. 

 

They pull away, and Pooch immediately speeds away from New Jerusalem as quickly as he can manage, and a scant one minute and forty seconds later, the SNUKES go off. New Jerusalem wiped back off the face of the world, the churning implosion disappearing back into calm waters in moments. It would be amazing to watch if it wasn’t so terrifying, and, frankly, if Jensen didn’t have other priorities. As it is, he catches it in glimpses, more focused on Cougar’s injuries. He’ll catch it on Twitter later, he has no doubt.

 

——————

 

“This isn’t New Hampshire,” says Cougar, and Jensen’s attention snaps to him. They’d dropped him and Cougar off in town, so that he could get proper medical assistance, before faking a crash, just in case anyone was still paying attention to them. They’ve made it back since, and helped Jensen liberate Cougar from the clinic he was treated in. They’re in a safe house of Aisha’s now, and Cougar’s been sedated since they first got to the emergency clinic, and Jensen’s been going out of his mind, now that there’s nothing left to distract him. He’s just been sitting by Cougar's goddamn bedside, because everyone knows by now, they’re not blind, so he might as well be where he wants to be. He’s been scrolling through every news site, every intelligence agency he can think of, trying to make sure that this really is it. That’s it’s really all over. Cougar’s trying to sit up, smiling up at him, alive. Fucking alive. They made it out alive. 

 

“Not yet, just waiting on you, buddy,” says Jensen. “I did call, though. Em says hi, hopes you’ll be coming to visit soon.”

 

“If that’s what you want,” says Cougar softly, and maybe it’s worth hoping, because they stopped Max, and saved the world, and they lived. Anything is possible. “Jake, I didn’t. I don’t know if I am…I have never considered myself bisexual,” he pauses, and Jensen has to bite back laughter. Almost anything is possible, anyway. He’d be disappointed, but he’s still got his best friend, and they’re still alive, and he knows how to count blessings. “Stop that,” admonishes Cougar, “Stop thinking.

“I do not know if I am bisexual, but I know this, _us_. I love you, Jake. I’ve never wanted a man before, not truly, but I want you. I promised God, I promised myself, that if we lived I would tell you. So. I love you, Jake.”

 

“ _Oh_ ,” says Jensen, and if it’s maybe not the best time to stop talking, he thinks he can be forgiven because his entire world is currently being rearranged. Cougar sits there patiently, aware of exactly how Jensen processes information, waiting for him to check back in. “Oh good,” Jensen’s aware his voice is trembling, but it’s been a really long fucking day, “I love you too.”

 

He leans in, so careful, afraid that he’ll exacerbate Cougar’s injuries, afraid that Cougar just feels indebted, afraid that Cougar’s confused platonic love for romantic. The kiss is soft and sweet, and Jensen’s fears and insecurities finally go silent. They trade kisses back and forth, gentle and careful, until they’re both smiling too much to continue. Jensen rests his head against Cougar’s forehead, and lets the peace of the moment sink into his skin, into his soul.

 

“What’s next?” asks Cougar, and he steals a kiss before Jensen can even reply. He’s not the suave flirt that’s been stealing girls from Jensen for years, he’s not the stoic yet amused teammate that he’s been fighting beside for even longer. He’s grinning up at Jensen, still sitting up in bed, his hands running up and down Jensen’s arms as though to keep him close, as though he doesn’t believe this either. 

 

“I’ll book a flight to New Hampshire, and then, I don’t know. A beach holiday maybe? Some time to relax, just the two of us.” 

 

“A good plan,” agrees Cougar, and Jensen leans in for another kiss, just because he can.

**Author's Note:**

> They spend two weeks on the beach in Antigua, because of course they do. 
> 
>  
> 
> I just wanted to write 2k on Jensen wearing a bi t-shirt and Aisha saying 'same', and two days later here we are. I can't explain it either. Feel free to come chat at [tumblr ](http://www.islandoforder.tumblr.com)


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